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THE 

FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE 

IN WORCESTER. 



Dedicatory Exercises at the Unveiling of the Tablet, 

May 23, 1903, upon the site of the School House 

WHERE John Adams, second President of 

the United States, taught from 

1755-1758. 



Tablet Placed and this Record Published by The 
Col. Timothy Bigelow Chapter, D. A. R. 



w 



WORCESTER, MASS.: 
lpiinte& 6? Ube dommonwealtb Pxcbs, 

O. B. WOOD, Proprietor. 



OFFICERS 
Col. Timothy Bigelow Chapter, D. A. R. 



1902-3 



Regent, Mrs. Daniel Kent. 

Vice-Regent, Mrs. William T. Forbes. 

Recording Secretary, Mrs. George H. Harlow, 
Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Willard B. Walworth. 
Treasurer, Mrs. Fred H. Daniels. 

Registrar, Mrs. Charles F. Mann. 

Historian, Mrs. Rufus B. Dodge. 

Auditor, Mrs. Homer Gage. 



Committee on Historical Research and Marking Local Sites. 

Mrs. Charles F. Marble, Chairman, 

Mrs. William T. Forbes, 

Mrs. G. Arthur Smith, 

Mrs. H. L. Parker, Jr., 

Miss Mary E. Whipple, 

Miss Emma F. Waite, 






INTRODUCTORY NOTE: THE FIRST 
SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

For scores of years it has been a much-discussed 
question among local antiquarians whether John Adams, 
Worcester's most illustrious school master, durmg his 
service here, from 1755 to 1758, taught in the first rude 
building erected near Lincoln Square, or in the second 
school house near the junction of Mechanic and Mam 
streets In view of the vote passed by The Colonel 
Timothy Bigelow Chapter, Daughters of the American 
Revolution, to place a memorial tablet upon the site of 
the school house where John Adams taught, the Com- 
mittee on Historical Research of the Chapter made 
earnest efforts to settle the disputed point, consultmg 
all available data,-published town records, unpublished 
warrants, diaries and other material. 

After the permanent establishment of a town school, 
in 1727, there were yearly appropriations for the sup- 
port of the schools, mention of an occasional school 
master by name with specific directions that he shal 

repair to the house of , there to keep school 

until ' ' some prescribed date. In other words there was 
no school building but " a moving school." The first 



6 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

direct mention of a school house was in the warrant and 
vote of October 7, 1729 : " Voted, If the town will build 
a Schoole house it passed on the neggative." This 
delayed action for four years. At the town meeting 
May 15, 1733, "it was voted that there be a Schoole- 
house Built at ye charge of ye Town and placed in ye 
Centre of ye South half of ye Town or as near as may 
be with conveniency having regard to suitable ground 
for such a house to stand on and Whear Land may be 
purchised in case it falls in men's particular property, 
provided ye purchis may be on Reasonable Terms." 
Then follow the votes regarding the dimensions of this 
first house whose erection was yet delayed for many 
years. It was to be " 24 feet long, 16 feet wide and 

7 feet studd, to be compleatly furnished with a good 
Chimney, Glass, etc." As additional action, "Collo. 
John Chandler was appointed Surveyor to find the Cen- 
tre of the south half of the Town." 

Difficulties arose over the surveying and also dissat- 
isfaction in the choice of the location. Two years later. 
May, 1735, the vote was passed to build the school house 
"at or near the north-west corner of ye Land of John 
Chandler, Jun. Esqr," etc. Again two years passed 
without practical results and, at last, in June, 1738, the 
decisive action was recorded, — " Voted that ye Town 
Reconsider their Vote last passed for seting ye School- 
house and order by their vote that ye Schoolhouse be 
built or set up between ye courthouse and the bridge 
below ye fulling-mills either above or below the Road." 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 7 

The erection must have begun at once for in the " Rec- 
ords of the Proprietors," is a reference, in November, 
1738, to a tract of land owned by William Jennison, 
purchasable " near whear the schoolhouse is now build- 
ing." Moreover, in appropriating money for the support 
of the schools the next year, 1739, a portion was reserved 
" for keeping a Grammar School in ye present school- 
house." 

During the next decade the votes relating to the 
schools are not of great moment and there is no men- 
tion of any new building. In 1752 an article in the 
warrant for a meeting in March, arranged, "To see if 
ye Town will give order to some person or persons to 
Repair Chimney in ye Schoolhouse in ye Centre of ye 
Town." Combined with this query was one relating 
to the erection of school houses in *'ye Quarters of ye 
Town." The sequel follows in the records, — a double 
negative, — "After considerable debate on ye Second 
and third articles in ye warrant for Repairing the old 
schoolhouse and building new ones, ye Question was 
put whether ye town would grant a sum for Services 
for either of them and it passed in ye negative." One 
important action was achieved this year, however, to 
meet the exactions of the law relating to grammar 
schools : — " that the Inhabitants of the Centre extending 
one mile and a half around ye Schoolhouse should have 
allowed them their proportion of money for the support 
of teaching, provided they do, bona fide, keep a gram- 
mar school the whole year ; and if their proportion of 



8 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

money will procure a master more than twelve weeks, 
the usual time they have of late had schooling, then 
any person may have liberty to send children afterwards." 
Thisvote is followed in Lincoln's "History of Worcester" 
(p. 252) by an indefinite statement which has caused 
much misinterpretation, — "About this period a school- 
house with two rooms was erected by James Putnam, 
John Chandler and other public-spirited individuals." 
Evidence from the two records, however, is conclusive 
that such a building was not erected until 1763-4. 

In 1753 and 1754 there were no votes relating to 
school houses, but in 1755 the sum appropriated for sup- 
port of the schools was increased from ^60 to ^75. The 
master engaged for that year was John Adams, by his 
own statement the Town school master, not teacher in 
any private school had such existed at the time. His 
throne was in the first, little school house at Lincoln 
Square. Possibly at the town meeting, 1755, three 
pages of whose records have been lost, action was taken 
to repair the chimney in the old school house, a comfort 
denied three years earlier, as already noted. In 1756 
among the expenditures is the following: — " To John 
Chandler Jun. for makeing stone (?) chimney in the 
schoolhouse and finding all the materials and paying ye 
workmen, one pound, two shillings and five pence." 

In John Adams's diary, under date of February 13, 
1756, is a note of marked interest, — " Supped at Major 
Gardiner's and engaged to keep school at Bristol, pro- 
vided Worcester people at their ensuing March meeting 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. y 

should change this into a moving school, not otherwise." 
Here is proof that he was the Town School master, — 
also that discussion was rife regarding the continuance 
of the increased appropriation for the grammar school 
during the entire year. At the March meeting, however, 
the usual sum was allowed and John Adams remained in 
Worcester, combining his teaching with law-studies at 
the office of Judge Putnam. In his Autobiography he 
^rote,— " Mrs. Putnam had consented I should board 
in the house, that I should pay no more than the town 
allowed for my lodgings, and that I should give him 
(Judge Putnam) one hundred dollars when I should 
find it convenient." 

In the Town Records of Worcester (Vol. Ill, pp. 
125-6) under date of March 4, 1763, seven years after 
John Adams had left Worcester, is the permission finally 
granted to James Putnam and others to build the second 
school house which was erected near the union of Me- 
chanic and Elm streets with Main. 

Through the exhaustive researches of Mr. Daniel 
Kent, Register of Deeds of Worcester District, the geo- 
graphical situation of the first school house has been 
approximately determined, and permission was given 
to place the tablet upon a granite stone, at the juncture 
of the land of the American Antiquarian Society and 
that of the County of Worcester, adjacent to the court 
house. In front of this stone and tablet stood the first 
school house in Worcester, honored by the services 
here of John Adams, afterwards second President of 
the United States. 



10 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

The dedicatory exercises were held in the First 
Unitarian Church, on Court Hill, on the afternoon of 
Saturday, May 23, 1903. Many distinguished guests 
were present from Boston and elsewhere as well as 
representative citizens of Worcester. The galleries 
were occupied by delegations from the public schools, 
and an orchestra and chorus from the South High School 
furnished music in the church. The tablet was unveiled 
at the close of the formal exercises. A reception and 
tea, under the management of the Social Committee of 
the Chapter, Mrs. C. C. Baldwin, Acting Chairman, 
was then tendered to the invited guests at the adjacent 
Woman's Club House. 



PROGRAMME AND ADDRESSES AT 
DEDICATION. 



Preceded by the Worcester Continentals in uniform, 
and the two chief ushers, the officers and especial guests 
of honor entered the church to the music of the Priests' 
March, from "Athalie," and in the following order: 

Mrs. Kent and President Hall, 
Mrs. Masury and Senator Hoar, 
Mrs. Simpson and Mr. Adams, 
Mrs. Forbes and Mrs. Marble. 

The Regent, Mrs. Daniel Kent, presided, and explained 
that " by reason of the unavoidable absence of the pas- 
tor. Reverend Mr. Garver, who was to have offered 
prayer, the South High School Chorus and Orchestra, 
under the direction of Miss Elizabeth Woodman, would 
open the exercises with ' To Thee, O Country ! ' " 

Mrs. Kent then spoke as follows: 
" Ladies and Gentlemen, School Children of Worcester: 

"It is not the part of any one to welcome you to 
exercises commemorative of the first school house in 



12 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

Worcester, for the men and women, boys and girls, of 
Worcester and of Worcester Connty, must feel proprie- 
tary interest in them* 

** I do not intend to trench upon the province of the 
distinguished speakers of the day. I cannot, however, 
refrain from thanking you all, in the name of The 
Colonel Timothy Bigelow Chapter, for your interest in 
our work and for honoring us by your presence. 

*' There is one point upon which we may congratulate 
each other: — the site of our first school house has been 
settled for all time, as has the fact that it was over this 
school, instead of the second, John Adams, afterward 
President of the United States, presided as Master. 

" In appointing a committee to conduct the untiring 
research necessary to settle, if possible, this long dis- 
cussed question, I was so fortunate as to induce Mrs. 
Charles Francis Marble to accept the chairmanship. 
How well and how faithfully she has executed the trust 
and performed the duty the splendid result bears wit- 
ness ; and I desire thus publicly to pay tribute to the 
Committee on Historical Research and Marking Local 
Sites, and to Mrs. Marble, its able and indefatigable 
chairman. We extend to this committee our gratitude 
and our thanks. 

" If the illustrious master of that simple little school 
house could be with us to-day he would be gratified, as 
we are, to listen to one whose profound scholarship 
entitles him to speak as an authority. I do not know 
whether Worcester is prouder of Clark University or of 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 13 

the University's distinguished President. I have the 
great honor of presenting President Hall." 

President G. Stanley Hall : "An expert in neither history 
nor antiquarian research and preceding two facile masters in 
these fields, my humble task must be as a citizen of Worcester 
to express the satisfaction we all feel to-day in being able — 
thanks, Madam Regent, to the careful and, I judge, exhaustive 
bit of investigation by your committee of The Colonel Timothy 
Bigelow Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution 
— to mark by a permanent tablet the spot which associates this 
city with the early life of one of the greatest of that group of 
great men who made this nation. My preparation had to be 
limited to reading the few and fragmentary pages of the Diary 
of John Adams who, as a boy of nineteen just from college, 
came to this town of 1,500 inhabitants in 1755 and spent the 
three following years, at an age when the average youth of to- 
day is an undergraduate, in the service of the nascent public 
school system to which the country has since owed so much that 
is best in it. In these meagre, personal notes, written with no 
thought of publication, we find him often drinking tea with the 
Chandlers, Greens and Thayers, names honored here ever since ; 
first intending to study for the ministry and reading Tillotson, 
Hutchinson, Butler's Analogy,- Milton, the New Testament in 
the original ; discussing sermons and wresthng with some of the 
mysteries of theology ; copying great authors for style, as Cicero 
rewrote Demosthenes. Then, but less seriously, he thought of 
a medical career, but at last resolved, while here, upon the law 
as best suited to his abilities and his taste for public affairs. He 
was a severe critic of himself and of all the faults that he found 
in his own character, most of which probably those that knew 
him best would have least suspected, he deemed laziness the 
worst. Some of his entries are — " rambled about all day, gap- 
ing and gazing;" "not one new idea this week;" "dreamed 



14 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

away the time ;" "I know not what has become of these days," 
etc. He resolved to rise at four-thirty in March and again with 
the sun in summer, but usually rose at seven. He did not realize, 
as we now know, that the ideals of youth, which are proverbially 
the best materials of prophecy, are best nourished in adolescent 
reveries, or that they are but the circumnutations of the young 
vine before it has found the proper support upon which to 
mount." 

Dr. Hall here read further extracts from the diary of 

John Adams. 

" It was once a widespread idea, to which many thoughtful 
minds are now reverting, that a little post-graduate schoolmas- 
tering is one of the very best preparations for each and all of the 
learned professions or for a public career, because it gives just 
the knowledge of human nature, which this young pedagogue 
shows in this passage he is learning. The young are transparent; 
their souls are not yet clad in the disguises which in adults are 
so hard to penetrate ; and, to be successful, a teacher must learn 
the art of understanding motives, controlling conduct, directing 
interest, and bettering character. The town of Boyville was old 
when Nineveh was a hamlet, and its life is that of the world 
reduced to just the dimensions suited to the powers of young 
men, so that thus they can perhaps learn the great world in the 
small. No historian can ever recall just what this country owes 
to the wisdom, which so many great Americans have gained in 
the pedagogue's seat where they have often learned far more 
than they have taught. As an apprenticeship to life and to prac- 
tical dealing with men, school teaching, I believe, is about the 
best and perhaps the only school where common sense can be 
learned, something which psychology cannot analyze, but which 
might almost be called the American muse — as characteristic of 
the genius of our people as is Gemuth of the Germans or esprit 
of the French, Thus teachers of every grade, who shall here- 
after tell their children the story of the tablet we to-day unveil, 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 15 

should do so with fresh pride in their own vocation, because we 
are all of us successors of John Adams, early school master of 
Worcester, and although if we have dreams of empire for our- 
selves they may not come true as his did, despite the fact that 
so many of our best Presidents have been teachers, we in our 
several classrooms rule a commonwealth so like the State, that 
Plato held that in the ideal republic the rulers should always be 
chosen from among the guides and inspirers of youth. 

" I need ask no apology from the distinguished descendant of 
John Adams, who is our guest to-day, if before closing I turn a 
little aside to draw another lesson from this occasion, which 
recent public interest has, as I believe most happily, now made 
timely. It is a biologic law that those who achieve greatness 
for themselves have often seemed to do so at the expense of their 
prosterity. Individuality may be so full blown as to enfeeble 
the power that transmits the sacred torch of life, according to 
the well-known law of the inverse ratio of individualization to 
genesis. But if one part of heredity is worth a hundred parts of 
education, it follows that all culture whatever, bought at any 
expense of this function, is not worth its price, for that most 
ancient wealth and worth that is given by blood is the most 
precious thing on earth. John Adams had five children, one of 
whom, as the world knows, was John Quincy Adams. These 
five bore sixteen in the next generation, one of whom was Charles 
Francis, the elder. The Adams book does not continue the pedi- 
gree in the female line, nor is it quite up to date, but at this 
rate of increase our guest, in the eighth generation from Henry 
Adams of Braintree, who, when he came to this country, in 1632 
or 1633, brought with him eight sons and a daughter, would be 
one of a generation of 51. The generation to which his children 
belong would number 163, and that of theirs 526. I do not 
know whether this rate of increase has been maintained, although 
the more than 1,200 pages of the Adams book suggest it in some 
branches of the family, nor do I know how far qualitative may 
have taken the place of numerical increase, but in the discus- 



16 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

sions of to-day this family has come into a new prominence as 
illustrating and justifying the hope that neither the tense condi- 
tions of our American life in general, nor generations of the 
highest education in particular, need to cause decline in the old 
American stock or to multiply the farms of New England, aban- 
doned because the families are extinct, or cause the sceptre of 
eminence and public service to pass from the older to the newer 
comers to our shores. 

" The gravity of the problems thus suggested is seen in a few 
figures that fairly sample a very laborious census, begun at Clark 
University a year and a half ago and now ready for publication, 
and embracing the records of ten of our largest and oldest 
colleges." 

At this point the speaker gave copious figures from 
Harvard and Yale, ilhistrating the same point for 
women's colleges. 

" There is a modern variant of the doctrine of the ancient Stoics 
that at the end of their great cycle of 10,000 years the world was 
made a tabula rasa and started afresh after every vestige of the 
past had been wiped out, but that in each successive era history 
repeated itself in the smallest details. One man alone was 
allowed to live over into the next period, the last man of the old 
and the first of the new era, viz., the best representative of the 
strip that had most frequently realized the promise to Abraham 
that his seed should be as the stars of Heaven in number. Per- 
haps the name we now commemorate will thus again be born in 
a new Eden as the father of the next edition of humanity. How- 
ever this may be, the new alliance now so suggestive between 
biology and politics teaches us that civilization may best be de- 
fined as man's domestication of himself; that the statesmanship 
of the future will concern itself not only with the present, but 
with future generations ; not with individuals or classes only, 
but with races ; not with present, but what Mr. Kidd well char- 



''^ 




JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 17 

acterizes as projected racial efficiency ; that no state rests on 
indestructible foundations till man has made for himself such an 
environment that the race increases from its own resources with- 
out too great dependence upon immigration ; that the social 
classes do not rotate too rapidly, the higher being plowed under 
and the lower coming to the top ; and that the great family tree 
of life be so cultivated as to bring most children to the com- 
pletest maturity. This will be the criterion by which to judge 
not only the State, but the school, the family, and the church." 

Mrs. Kent: "In its best and broadest sense patri- 
otism is cosmopolitan. We have with us to-day an 
uplifter of humanity ; a worthy descendant of a signer 
of the immortal Declaration of Independence ; one 
whose gracious presence is both benison and inspiration. 
It is with a feeling of especial pride and gratefulness 
that I present Worcester's venerated and best loved 
citizen; America's eminent son, Senator Hoar." 

Senator Hoar : " I do not mean to take much part in this 
ceremonial. I have come only to declare my gratitude to the 
ladies of this society and the other kindred societies, for what 
they are doing to keep alive the memory of our local history. 

" Human nature, certainly American human nature, is so con- 
stituted that there is no inspirer like local association. No labor 
of historian, no eloquence of orator, will stir the heart of youth 
to the love of country, and a desire to emulate the great deeds 
of the past, like a visit to the spot which has been familiar with 
the presence of great men, or the scene where great deeds have 
been enacted. The boy will listen carelessly to the story of the 
19th of April, or the Fourth of July, or the 22nd of December. 
But he will not forget a visit to Concord, or Plymouth or Inde- 
pendence Hall. 



18 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

" If we cannot claim that Worcester has been the scene of 
events like these, yet it is pleasant to recall that the figures of 
men who took part in them were familiar to her streets and 
dwellings. The spot where we are gathered was well known in the 
time of the Revolution to those illustrious and venerable characters. 

"Close by, as the tablet tells you, John Adams taught the 
children of Worcester the rudiments of sound learning. I think 
we may be quite sure that he did not forget the principles of 
liberty. 

"On the spot where the court house stands lived Isaiah Thomas, 
the patriot printer. His house is now to be seen within a few 
rods of us. On the site of this church was Mr. Thomas's print- 
ing office. Dr. Franklin, the most illustrious printer that ever 
lived since printing was invented, visited Dr. Thomas at his 
house, and struck off from an old press, now owned by the 
American Antiquarian Society, a page for which he had himself 
set the type. 

"Just opposite is the room where Washington breakfasted when 
he made his journey through New England in 1789, When I 
came to Worcester there was standing two doors to the south 
of us the old house to which, the week before the battle of 
Bunker Hill, Gen. Warren, who was a widower, brought his 
children and Margaret Schollay, the lady to whom he was en- 
gaged, to remove them from the dangerous neighborhood of 
Boston. I myself saw the names of Joseph Warren and Margaret 
Schollay, written by him with a diamond on a pane of glass in 
the window. About the same distance in the other direction, 
still stands the old Salisbury mansion, built by Mr. Salisbury 
on land bought of John Hancock. Hancock had a summer 
residence for sixteen years a little farther north on Lincoln 
Street. Half a mile to the northwest is the birthplace of George 
Bancroft. 

" In the square just opposite, lived for a long time, and died, 
Timothy Bigelow, who commanded the old fifteenth regiment, 
the best organized and best drilled regiment in the Revolutionary 



1Q 
JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 

Army. A little later, on the steps of yonder court house, Artemas 
Ward dauntlessly confronted the turbulent mob m the tune of 
the Shays rebellion, and subdued them to quiet and order by 
the dignity and authority of his presence. 

"There is, so far as I know, no authentic tradition of the 
presence of Sam Adams in Worcester. But his near kindred 
dwelt here. His nephew, Joseph Allen, who was to him as a 
son, and whose own illustrious son sometimes almost seemed to 
be Sam Adams come to life again, dwelt here. Sam Adams s 
sister was the wife of a clergyman in Boylston, six miles away. 
I suppose some of his kindred are in the audience to-day. So 
it is likely that his figure was familiar with our streets and 

dwellings. -^i, ^.v,^ 

"In 1774 and 1775, the street in front of us was alive with the 
excitement of the opening scenes of the Revolution. 

"In September, 1774, about 5,000 men occupied the street m 
front of where we now stand, arranged under their leaders m 
companies six deep and extending for a quarter of a mile. 
Through this multitude the royal judges and their assistants 
passed safely to the court house. There they were compelled to 
stay proceedings and to promise not to execute the unconstitu- 
tional acts of parliament. . 

" For any man who loves the history of his country, it is easy 
to fancy the factories and stores and dwellings, and the busthng 
throngs of our busy Main Street all gone, and the old colonial 
houses with their gardens and front yards, and the venerable 
figures of the men of the Revolution here in their stead. 

"Washington and Franklin and Adams-we can almost see 
them We can almost touch the hem of their garments. Wash- 
ington and Franklin and Thomas and Hancock and Warren and 
Bigelow and Sam Adams and John Adams— 

' The passing of their beautiful feet 
Gladdens the pavement of the street.' 

" For myself, there is no one of them, not even Washington 



20 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

or Warren, that I should like better to have seen and known 
than brave and honest old John Adams. 

" He was the great constitutional lawyer of the Revolution. It 
is remarkable, and it may be unfortunate, that both he and 
Jefferson were absent from the convention that framed the con- 
stitution. John Adams was in England and Jefferson was in 
France. Whether the compromises of the constitution would 
have been possible if they had been there, I cannot tell. But I 
think a body of which Adams was an influential member would 
not have adjourned without accomplishing its work. This, 
however, is the merest speculation. It certainly would not have 
left the constitution without a bill of rights. 

" Sam Adams was a great organizer of political forces. He 
would have been known, if he had lived to-day, as a wire-puller. 
But the forces he organized were those of righteousness and 
liberty. 

"Mr. Jefferson stands in human history as the foremost man 
that ever lived, whose influence has led men to govern themselves 
in the conduct of States by spiritual laws. That was Jefferson's 
mission. Observe that I say spiritual laws, and not spiritual 
truths merely — not formulae, to be assented to, but rules of life 
to be governed by and acted upon. 

" It was due to Jefferson that our fathers laid deep the foun- 
dation of the State in the moral law. They first set to mankind 
the great example, and exhibited the mighty spectacle — the sub- 
limest spectacle in the universe — of a great and free people vol- 
untarily governing itself by a law higher than its own desire. 

"The doctrine of the Declaration was by no means new or 
original. Our accomplished friend and neighbor, Alfred Waites, 
pointed out to me the other day, what I had never known before, 
that a large part of the Declaration of Independence is but a 
paraphrase, in Jefferson's matchless style, of the prose writings 
of John Milton. 

"Neither Jefferson nor Sam Adams seemed to have much 
capacity for organizing the mechanism of government. They 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 21 

stood for the liberty of the individual. They asserted the free- 
dom of America from the power of parliament. They were for 
confining the royal prerogatives within strict limits, and if the 
king would not keep within them, for throwing off his authority 
altogether. But they seem to have been of little value as makers 
of constitutions, certainly when you get beyond the bill of rights. 
Hamilton, on the other hand, trusted to the authority of organ- - 
ized government, and not to the declaration of moral principles, 
for the safety of the State. He liked the British constitution. 
He was charged — I dare say truly, though with exaggeration — 
with a leaning toward aristocracy, or at any rate with trusting 
to the authority of a few leading minds, rather than to the gen- 
eral sense of the people to control the conduct of the State. 

"John Adams occupied a middle ground. He was a great 
constitutional lawyer. He signed the Declaratioii of Independence. 
Anybody who knows John Adams, knows that he never would 
have signed it if he had not devoutly believed, to the fullest 
extent, every one of its sublime utterances. But he knew, even 
better than his great kinsman, he knew far better than Jefferson, 
that neither law nor liberty could be trusted where the temporary 
impulse of the people has full and direct sway in government. 
He knew the value of courts, or constitutional restraints, of delib- 
eration, of the sober second-thought. He knew better than 
Hamilton that the considerate will of a free people is safer than 
that of any monarch or of any nobility. He understood, too, 
better than any other man of his time, with few exceptions 
indeed, that there are great domains of power into which no 
government should be permitted to enter. 

" It is to the glory of John Adams that he knew how to con- 
struct the mechanism which would make Jefferson's lofty theories 
living and practical realities and would secure government by 
the people against the perils feared by Hamilton. 

' ' Jefferson wrote the opening sentences of the Declaration of 
Independence — that all men are created equal, that they are en- 
dowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among 



22 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; that when- 
ever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to insti- 
tute new government, laying its foundation on such principles 
and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem 
most likely to effect their safety and happiness ; that all govern- 
ments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. 

"Jefferson wrote these sentences. But John Adams signed 
them. You maybe sure he did not sign them unless he believed 
them. John Adams put in the Constitution of Massachusetts 
better safeguards against the license of temporary majorities 
than any conceived by Hamilton. 

* ' The foibles of John Adams endear him to us. The outspoken 
honesty of the man ; the querulousness, the hasty offence and 
the easy reconciliation, the carelessness for the proprieties of the 
time or place, the lack of reverence for human dignity. All 
these things are intensely attractive. He did not willingly sub- 
mit to any man's dictation or authority. Independence was the 
motto on which he acted all his life. 'Independence forever,' 
were the last words that came from his dying lips. 

"There is no other of the men of the time of the Revolution, 
I do not think of any other man in our history, unless it be 
Grant, who has borne such generous testimony to the service of 
his great contemporaries and companions and rivals, as John 
Adams. We have to go to his letters and his diary to find the 
best things ever said in praise of James Otis, or Hancock, or 
Sam Adams. It was he that called Washington to the command 
of the army, and Marshall to the head of the supreme court. 

"Take him all in all, Massachusetts has no better model for 
her youth. She has no more glorious character in her history. 
We will stand by him. We will stand by our brave old man 
against all critics and all detractors. 

" I do not know but I ought at some time to make a confes- 
sion. I may as well make it here: 

"In 1865, Governor Andrew called the attention of the legis- 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 23 

lature of Massachusetts to the act of congress of July 2, 1864, 
which set apart the beautiful old hall of the house of representa- 
tives in the capitol, as a national statuary hall, and authorized 
the president to invite each and all the States to provide and 
furnish statues in marble or bronze, not exceeding two in num- 
ber for each State, of deceased persons who have been citizens 
thereof, and illustrious for their historic renown, or for distin- 
guished civic or military services, such as each State shall deter- 
mine to be worthy of this national commemoration. 

" The governor suggested the appointment of a commission 
to report a plan of co-operation on the part of Massachusetts. 
The legislature took his advice. He afterward appointed John 
G. Palfrey, Richard Frothingham and Solomon Lincoln as com- 
missioners, to select and propose to the legislature the historic 
persons to be in that way commemorated by Massachusetts. 
The commission reported seven years after. It was agreed that 
one of the statues should represent the Revolutionary period, and 
one that of the revolution. They were all agreed upon John Win- 
throp for the first. When it came to the second figure, Mr. 
Palfrey and Mr. Lincoln were for John Adams and Mr. Frothing- 
ham was for Sam Adams. The two reports stated admirably 
the argument of each side. These reports were sent to the joint 
committee on federal relations. Their report, made by Frederick 
W. Lincoln, the eminent mayor of Boston, was unanimous for 
Sam Adams. 

" It is noticeable that the committee grounds its argument for 
preferring him almost wholly on the generous and eloquent 
testimonial of his great competitor. 

"It was understood that the legislature was divided, as the 
original commission had been, and the matter remained unde- 
termined some years longer. 

" Meantime, many other States, among them our neighbors- 
Rhode Island and Connecticut, were selecting their representa- 
tives. It seemed strange that Massachusetts should be behind 
them. I was then the senior member of the delegation in the 



24 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

house of representatives. I addressed an earnest letter to Gov- 
ernor Claflin, to which I obtained the approval of the entire 
delegation, calling his attention to the fact that our pedestals 
were still vacant, and urging upon him that the legislature ought 
to settle the matter without further delay. 

"No man loved and honored John Adams more than I did. 
But it seemed to me that the even-hanging balance in which 
the claim of the two famous kinsmen had been weighed so long 
ought to be inclined at least by the thought of the ample com- 
pensations which life had brought to John Adams for his services 
in the cause of his country. I can conceive of nothing which 
the human heart can desire in satisfaction of a pure ambition, 
which did not fall to his lot. As was well said by Mr. Webster, 
* He was attended through life by a great and fortunate genius. 
He had written his name where all nations should behold it, and 
where all time should not efface it.' He lived to see the inde- 
pendence of his country achieved. His was the rare good for- 
tune to take part in a great revolution from its beginning to its 
successful issue. The proscribed rebel was received by the sov- 
ereign who had hated him as the representative of a great and 
free people. He was deemed by his countrymen worthy to be 
associated with Washington in the inauguration of the govern- 
ment, and succeeded him in the great office of the presidency. 
He was the foremost champion of the Declaration of Independence 
on the floor of congress, and his famous prophecy will cause his 
name to be remembered by his countrymen as its anniversary 
returns until time shall be no more. He was the chief author of 
the Constitution of his native State. He rejoiced in the congenial 
companionship of one of the most affectionate of wives and most 
intellectual of women. His life ended on the spot where it 
began, at the great age of ninety, in a strong, vigorous old age, 
made happy by private aftection^and public reverence. By a 
coincidence almost miraculous, his death took place when mil- 
lions of his countrymen, happy and at peace, under the presi- 
dency of his son, were celebrating the great day he had made 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 25 

famous. ' If the chariot and horses of fire had been vouchsafed 
to him, he could scarcely have had a more splendid translation 
or departed in a brighter blaze of glory.' 

"Samuel Adams, on the other hand, lived and died poor. 
His only son preceded him to the grave, leaving none to inherit 
his name. He held no considerable public office, except that of 
delegate to the Continental Congress, until he succeeded Hancock 
as governor in his 72d year, when, in his own opinion, the weight 
of years and infirmities was beginning to unfit him for further 

service. 

"It seemed to me also quite certain that the statues of all the 
presidents of the United States would sooner or later be placed 
in the capitol by national authority. So I took the responsibility 
of urging the delegation and congress and the governor to prefer 
Sam Adams for that special honor. 

"After all, after all, it is of little importance to either. Monu- 
ments and statues are not for the dead, but for the living. So 
long as in every generation the youth of Massachusetts learn their 
lesson from this great school master, the Commonwealth he loved 
and served, for whom he wrote her Constitution, the immortal 
text-book of Liberty, will abide. If our youth sit at the feet of 
other teachers, and learn other lessons, Massachusetts also will 
be of the past, with nothing save some tablet to commemorate 
the spot once consecrated by her beautiful but forgotten life." 

Mrs. Kent announced that the chorus would sing 
Kipling's " Recessional." 

Mrs. Kent : "There are in Massachusetts 4,000 patri- 
otic and enthusiastic Daughters of the American Revo- 
lution. As their chief they have elected a lady widely 
known for her executive ability and rare tact in leader- 
ship. The honored State Regent of Massachusetts, 
Mrs. Charles Henry Masury." 



26 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

Mrs. Masury : Madam Regent: — "I come to bring the greet- 
ings of the State to the Colonel Timothy Bigelow Chapter, 
Daughters of the American Revolution. I bring the greeting of 
the Commonwealth to the Heart of the Commonwealth ; to lay 
at the feet of our honored Senator Hoar the allegiance and loy- 
alty of the Daughters of the American Revolution of the old Bay 
State. Much has been said to-day of the man, John Adams. 
I wish to say a word for the woman, Abigail Adams ; to call to 
your remembrance the scene when she stood with her son on the 
heights of Quincy listening to the firing at Bunker Hill, pouring 
into his childish mind her own enthusiasm for liberty. Nor did 
she stand alone. From colonial home and from log cabin alike 
the women of the Revolution helped to uphold the men. They 
planted the seed, and reaped the harvest; tended the cattle, and 
reared the children; gathered the flax and spun the garments, 
and to their industry and enthusiasm America owes her debt for 
freedom. 

" The women of to-day are no less patriotic than the women of 
the Revolution, and the forty-four thousand Daughters of the 
American Revolution, well organized, pledged to ' Home and 
Country,' stand ready to respond to any patriotic call. A noble 
band of women, held together by the National Society at Wash- 
ington, they have accomplished much work in marking historic 
spots, placing tablets, preserving historic houses, erecting mon- 
uments, sun-dials, presenting prizes to the public schools for 
essays on historic subjects, teaching foreign-born children the 
principles of American liberty, and in patriotic meetings teaching 
the noblest and loftiest of truths. 

* ' It has been said ' God sifted a whole nation that he might send 
choice grain over into this wilderness ; ' if this be true, then it is 
the mission of the Daughters of the American Revolution, de- 
scended from the first seed, to help teach the youth of our 
country, extending to the far away islands of the sea, our les- 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 



27 



sons of freedom ; let all that is best in our government be given 
to the outcast and down-trodden of all nations. Let us not learn 
from them the lessons of anarchy and socialism but give to them 
all that is noblest and best, so that America may ever be what 
her founders intended she should be,-' The Land of the Brave 
and the Home of the Free.' " 

Mrs. Kent : "Our National Society numbers about 
44,000 members. It stretches over the continent from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and across those waters to 
distant countries. We are so happy this afternoon as 
to have with us Massachusetts' honored Vice-President 
General of the National Society, whose patriotism is 
only equalled by her philanthropy, Mrs. Greenlief Wad- 
leigh Simpson." 

Mrs. Simpson : ' ' Madam Regent, Honored Guests, Ladies and 
Gentlemen : I feel it a great honor and privilege to respond to 
the gracious and cordial welcome, and to participate in these 
interesting exercises. We have just held in the city of Washing- 
ton a very enthusiastic and profitable meeting, and I am very 
pleased to bring to one and all assembled cordial greetings from 
the National Board of Management, Daughters of the American 
Revolution. I congratulate the members of The Col. Timothy 
Bigelow Chapter on the grand and noble work they have been 
enabled to accomplish. 

" It is well known that for years you have been greatly interested 
in obtaining an authentic list of the Revolutionary Soldiers who 
enlisted from Worcester, to find out where they died, and to 
locate their graves. The work has been carefully accomplished 
and it is something for which the Chapter may well be proud. 
On the 30th of May, 1901, the Chapter, in connection with other 
patriotic societies in Worcester, unveiled a tablet to the memory 
of the eight revolutionary soldiers, who are buried near the 



28 FIRvST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

Timothy Bigelow Monument, which stands upon the common in 
your city. In the course of his remarks, the orator of the day 
paid the following tribute to The Timothy Bigelow Chapter : 
* We should be lacking in the qualities of appreciation and 
gratitude if we did not pay a tribute of admiration to the patri- 
otic women of this city, who conceived and have brought to 
completion this sacred and ennobling recognition of our dead, 
but not forgotten soldiers.' Your magnanimous offer of a prize 
for the best three essays upon patriotic subjects, brought a 
response from forty-seven High Schools in Worcester County. 
Who can measure the amount of good done? the thoughtful 
study? the development of patriotism? which is the eternal herit- 
age of all humanity. 

"The organization of a Children's Auxiliary is deserving of all 
praise; would that every Chapter might follow your example, to 
organize and carry on the completion of this important part of 
our work; then a vast army would be enrolled, armed and 
equipped to carry on the work we must lay down when the 
Master calls us to render an account of our stewardship. I 
have only referred to a small portion of your earnest and 
untiring efforts to promote the great interests of our Organiza- 
tion, but I must not forget to mention, that the crowning act of 
your loyalty and love to our great leader, our President General, 
was when you made her an Honorary member of The Col. Tim- 
othy Bigelow Chapter. One and all have a profound interest 
in the unveiling of this tablet to-day, for in so doing we are 
perpetuating the principles of liberty and progress and the heroic 
men and women of the Revolution. For the sentiment of the 
great body of the people is for the sturdy principles of liberty, 
equality and individual advancement. 

" I would be false to my trust if I did not improve this oppor- 
tunity to say a few words for Memorial Continental Hall. No 
more important work engages our attention at the present time 
than the building of this magnificent structure. We read that 
the 'Father of our Counry ' had one thing at heart, and that 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 29 

was, that the thirteen original States should have memorial 
buildings in Washington. Now, after one hundred years, the 
Daughters of the American Revolution have taken up the work 
and propose to build one memorial building, the finest ever 
owned by women ; one worthy to commemorate our ancestors, 
the heroic men and women of the American Revolution, who 
left to us the glorious inheritance of a free Republic. At a 
meeting of the National Board, November, 1901, it was voted 
that all fees in payment of life membership be set apart as the 
nucleus of a building fund. At the first Congress, February, 
1892, the permanent fund was officially announced to have 
reached the sum of $65,000. Since that time a beautiful building 
site has been purchased, costing $50,266.17, and we have in 
the treasury at the present time $87,978.95. It is proposed to 
lay the corner stone October 11th, 1903. As a National Officer 
I extend to all present a cordial invitation to be present at the 
interesting ceremonies. 

"As 1 have three minutes of the ten alloted to me, I desire to 
say a few words in regard to our National Society. It is com- 
posed of women lineally descended from the soldiers, the sailors 
and the recognized patriots, men and women, who achieved 
American Independence in the War of the Revolution, It was 
founded in the city of Washington, October 11th, 1890, eighteen 
women signing the formal draft of organization. To-day we 
have six hundred Chapters, and a membership of about forty- 
four thousand, Massachusetts alone having sixty-two wide-awake 
Chapters, and four thousand noble, loyal, devoted Daughters. 
Is not this a record of which we may well feel proud, that in 
twelve years of our history we have had such a phenomenal 
growth? The vast amount of work accomplished by the Chap- 
ters in all States of our Union, especially in our own State, and 
the large amount of money contributed, seem almost incredible. 
Every year our expenses are met and a surplus transferred to 
Memorial Continental Hall fund. This year our expenses were 
$25,462, and during the twelve years of our existence we have 
contributed $138,245 to Memorial Continental Hall fund. 



30 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

** Your Chapter merits and receives the thanks and gratitude of 
the National Society, for your magnificent work, your grand 
efforts for broader education, the development of patriotism, for 
the munificent amount contributed to Memorial Continental 
Hall, and the supreme privilege of erecting to-day this memorial 
to our Revolutionary Hero, John Adams, Signer of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, Framer of the Constitution of Massachu- 
setts, second President of the United States, and Worcester's 
most illustrious school master. 

"As Daughters of the American Revolution, may we not look 
forward hopefully and confidently, as with renewed interest and 
strength we engage in an ardent service of our country. For 
the pleasure of being present, and for your kind attention, I 
sincerely thank you." 

» 

Mrs. Kent: "One of the most active and influen- 
tial members of the committee which framed the Dec- 
laration of Independence was John Adams, the life-long 
friend of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson; 
Vice-President under President Washington ; second 
President of the United States and father of the sixth 
President. It is a 'knightly, time-honored line.' I 
have the privilege and honor of introducing the great- 
grandson of President John Adams, Honorable Charles 
Francis Adams." 

Mr. Adams: " Called upon as a descendant of John Adams, 
and as the representative here of his descendants, I speak under 
embarrassment. Nevertheless, I will not pretend to conceal the 
satisfaction, and more than satisfaction, — the gratification, with 
which I have listened to the remarks of those who have pre- 
ceded me. Especially have I felt the kindly and sympathetic 
tone which pervaded the carefully prepared utterances of Senator 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 31 

Hoar ; for sympathy and kindliness have not always and every- 
where been conspicuous in what has been said of John Adams. 
In what I may now add, I have no intention of following the 
lines of thought pursued by either President Hall or Senator 
Hoar ; and, moreover, I propose to be brief. Indeed, had I come 
here prepared with any elaborate production, I am obliged to 
confess I should have found my speech made in advance of my 
being called upon. The ground has already been covered. 

" Nevertheless, I am here not altogether empty-handed, for I 
have brought with me one interesting contribution so peculiarly 
appropriate to the spot and the occasion that it seems indeed to 
belong rather in Worcester than among the papers of the family 
of which I am a member. I refer to the manuscript diary of 
John Adams, now in my hand, the interesting portions of which 
have long since been published, while from it liberal quotations 
have to-day been made. Here it is, yellow with age; a few 
small sheets of coarse writing-paper, stitched together, covered 
by those closely written characters peculiar to a time when the 
material on which to write was both poor and costly. What is 
on those pages was written here, in Worcester, then a place of 
3,000 inhabitants, close upon a century and a half ago. It has 
to-day come back to the place, so to speak, of its birth, for the 
first time. I cannot leave it among the archives of the American 
Antiquarian Society, though there it properly belongs ; for it is 
not mine to give. Perhaps it is better so ; for it necessarily is a 
part of that larger accumulation of manuscripts relating to John 
Adams and his times, which is elsewhere preserved. But here, 
to-day, it is of the occasion. 

' ' Turning now to the general subject, I ask your patience while 
I, from the manuscript, read a few words written here in Wor- 
cester midway in the eighteenth century. When a young man 
of twenty-one, John Adams sat in his teacher's chair in the 
building which stood almost where we are now gathered, and, 
on the 15th of March, 1756, he thus moralized: 

' I sometimes in my sprightly moments consider myself, in 



32 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

my great chair at school, as some dictator at the head of a com- 
monwealth. In this little state I can discover all the great geniuses, 
all the surprising actions and revolutions in the great world, in 
miniature. I have several renowned generals but three feet 
high, and several deep projecting politicians in petticoats. 
In short, my little school, like the great world, is made up of 
kings, politicians, divines, fops, buffoons, fiddlers, sycophants, 
fools, coxcombs, chimney sweepers, and every other character 
drawn in history, or seen in the world. Is it not, then, the high- 
est pleasure, my friend, to preside in this little world, to bestow 
the proper applause upon virtuous and generous actions, to 
blame and punish every vicious and contracted trick, to wear 
out of the tender mind everything that is mean and little, and 
fire the new-born soul with a noble ardor and emulation? The 
world affords no greater pleasure.' 

"A little more than four years later, at Braintree, he, now a 
lawyer rapidly rising in his profession, thus referred to Worcester 
and his bygone schoolmaster life : 

' There the mischievous tricks, the perpetual, invincible prate, 
and the stupid dullness of my scholars, roused my passions, and 
with them my views and impatience of ambition.' 

"Let us now, like one of Shakespeare's choruses, eliminating 
the intervening nineteen years, transfer the scene from Worces- 
ter, in 1756, to Philadelphia, in 1775. In 1775 the former school 
master was himself a member of a deliberative body representa- 
tive of a nascent people. He was there actually to do what he 
had amused himself by attempting in imagination, — that is, in 
the body of which he was a member, he was to discover great 
geniuses, if such were there, — men who were in deed, and not in 
imagination, to rule the actions and revolutions of the world, 
and he was to invoke renowned generals, bringing them to the 
front. In that assembly, known as the Continental Congress, 
made up, doubtless, in good part, like his school, of politicians 
and of divines,— and not without its representation of those others 
he had enumerated, — it was for him to bestow the proper applause 
upon virtuous and generous actions, and fire the newborn soul 
with a noble ardor and emulation. In all modesty, though a 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 33 

descendant, may I not challenge denial when I say, — All that he 
did! Again, let me quote from his record, — the record made by 
himself of events which occurred in April, May and June, 1775, 
— the days between the Lexington-Concord fight and the conflict 
on Bunker Hill. An improvised army, suddenly collected, then 
lay before Boston, — an army of New England Yankees, organ- 
ized by the several provinces, commanded by officers holding 
their commissions each from his own province, and recognizing 
no single head ; and those provinces were separated by an 
interval of time and space from the sister provinces, south of the 
Hudson, almost prohibitive of that close intercourse and quick 
community of thought and feeling essential to any concentrated 
action. Steam and electricity had not then done away with miles 
and hours. The problem before the Congress was, as it has so 
often been since, one of union; and in union, and union alone, 
was resisting strength. Could jealousies, suspicions and oppos- 
ing interests be done away with, at least for the time, and out of 
separate provinces, one temporary commonwealth improvised? 
The emergency was great and urgent; rarely has a more impor- 
tant question called for some one man to rise, and utter the 
decisive word. Communities notoriously jealous of their inde- 
pendence, suspicious of outsiders, must be made to yield prece- 
dence, — to see in a large way the one thing needful now to be 
done. The immediate question was of the adoption of that army 
of Yankee farmers by the Continental Congress, and the selec- 
tion for it of a commander-in-chief. Was the struggle to be 
nationalized? Would Massachusetts then evince a local, jealous 
and self-asserting spirit? Would the stubborn Puritan Com- 
monwealth insist upon the lead of its own ofl'-spring, — declare for 
those already holding its commission? What would have been 
more natural? How could the demand, if made, be refused? 
And yet, what would have been the consequences of acceding to 
it? Looking back through a century and a third of materialized 
history, it may safely be affirmed that not only was the final 
solution of the conflict for independence involved in the issue 



Lof 



n 



34 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

of that debate, but subsequent nationality also. Who was to 
take the lead, — who speak the incisive word? 

"John Adams, I submit, — the former Worcester school master, 
— then came to the front, rising to the full height of the great 
occasion. He solved the problem. He has given us an account 
of what occurred. I quote from his published writings: 

' Every post brought me letters urging in pathetic terms the 
impossibility of keeping the army together without the assistance 
of Congress. I was daily urging [this], but we were embarrassed 
with more than one difficulty, not only with the party in favor 
of the petition to the King, and the party who were jealous of 
independence, but a third party, which was a Southern party 
against a Northern, and a jealousy against a New England army 
under the command of a New England General. . . . The intention 
was very visible to me that Colonel Washington was their object, 
and so many of our staunchest men were in the plan, that we 
could carry nothing without conceding to it. ... In canvassing this 
subject, out of doors, I found, too, that even among the delegates 
of Virginia there were difficulties. The apostolical reasonings 
among themselves, — which should be greatest, — were not less 
energetic among the saints of the ancient dominion than they 
were among us of New England. In several conversations, I 
found more than one very cool about the appointment of Wash- 
ington. . . . Full of anxieties concerning these confusions, and 
apprehending daily that we should hear very distressing news 
from Boston, I walked with Mr. Samuel Adams in the State 
House yard, for a little exercise and fresh air, before the hour 
of Congress, and there represented to him the various dangers 
that surrounded us. He agreed to them all, but said, — " What 
shall we do?" — I answered him, that he knew I had taken great 
pains to get our colleagues to agree upon some plan, that we 
might be unanimous ; but he knew that they would pledge them- 
selves to nothing ; but I was determined to take a step which 
should compel them and all the other members of Congress 
to declare themselves for or against something. "I am deter- 
mined this morning to make a direct motion that Congress 
should adopt the army before Boston, and appoint Colonel 
Washington commander of it." Mr. Adams seemed to think 
very seriously of it, but said nothing. 

'Accordingly, when Congress had assembled, I rose in my 
place, and in as short a speech as the subject would admit, rep- 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 35 

resented the state of the Colonies, the uncertainty in the minds 
of the people, their great expectation and anxiety, the distresses 
of the army, the danger of its dissolution, the difficulty of collect- 
ing another, and the probability that the British army would 
take advantage of our delays, march out of Boston, and spread 
desolation as far as they could go. I concluded with a motion, 
in form, that Congress would adopt the army at Cambridge, and 
appoint a General ; that though this was not the proper time to 
nominate a General, yet, as I had reason to believe this was a 
point of the greatest difficulty, I had no hesitation to declare 
that I had but one gentleman in my mind for that important 
command, and that was a gentleman from Virginia who was 
among us and very well known to all of us, a gentleman whose 
skill and experience as an officer, whose independent fortune, 
great talents, and excellent universal character, would command 
the approbation of all America, and unite the cordial exertions 
of all the Colonies better than any other person in the Union. 
Mr. Washington, who happened to sit near the door, as soon as 
he heard me allude to him, from his usual modesty, darted into 
the library-room. . . . Mr. Samuel Adams seconded the motion. . . . 
The subject came under debate, and several gentlemen declared 
themselves against the appointment of Mr. Washington, not on 
account of any personal objection against him, but because the 
army were all from New England, had a General of their own, 
appeared to be satisfied with him, and had proved themselves 
able to imprison the British army in Boston. . . .The subject was 
postponed to a future day. In the meantime, pains were taken 
out of doors to obtain a unanimity, and the voices were gener- 
ally so clear in favor of Washington, that the dissentient mem- 
bers were persuaded to withdraw their opposition ; and Mr. 
Washington was nominated, I believe by Mr. Thomas Johnson 
of Maryland, unanimously elected, and the army adopted.' 

"Pardon me for inflicting upon you so long an extract. Never- 
theless, the place and the occasion may justify it. Recently, I 
somewhere chanced across an aphorism of some shrewd observer 
of mankind to the following effect: — 'It is astonishing how 
much good one can accomplish in this world if one is only willing 
to allow others to have the credit of it.' It was so here. When 
John Adams thus assumed the responsibility,— a thing he never, 
from first to last, was disposed to shirk,— and came forward in 
the name of Massachusetts, offering the command of New Eng- 



36 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

land men to Virginia and George Washington, then and there a 
fateful issue was decided. George Washington became the 
commander-in-chief of the army of the United States. The deci- 
sive word had been spoken ; for how could the other provinces 
refuse the offer of that province from which the army came, and 
in which the military operations were then in progress? All else, 
— the formal nomination, the election, and the acceptance of 
the commission, — were from that moment mere matters of detail. 
So here, to-day, on the site of the building where young John 
Adams, the recent college graduate, sitting in his great chair at 
school, 'as some dictator at the head of a commonwealth, 
looked in his little state for the great geniuses, and the surpris- 
ing actions and revolutions in the great world in miniature,' — 
here, on this occasion, I appeal to the record as to the success 
with which he repeated the operation nineteen years later, on 
the larger stage, and in the maturity of his life and power. 
Though a descendant of his, I am fain to ask, when has any 
man done a greater service, — when has any made a more divinely 
illumined choice? It was a broad-minded inspiration ; and, 
by virtue of it, he did more to influence the course of events 
through the next ninety years, down to the breaking-out of the 
great Civil War, than was done by any man between Bunker 
Hill and Sumter. The hour had come ; it was given to him to 
speak the word. 

" I am conscious of violating my promise that I would be brief. 
I shall, therefore, pass over in few words what yet remains for 
me to say. I will summarize: — Subsequently, John Adams was 
the pillar of the Declaration. Thomas Jefferson, his successful, 
political opponent, succeeding him in the presidency, has so 
testified. More than any other man, it has been said, — and 
truthfully said, I think, — John Adams was the incarnated moral 
energy of the Revolution. He was one of the negotiators, and 
not the least firm and insistent, of our Treaty of Independence. 
His name and seal are affixed to it. He was the framer of the 
Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, — that constitution which, as 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 37 

Senator Hoar to-day told you, has served as the model upon 
which the constitutions of too many commonwealths for easy 
enumeration have since been framed, and are now in operation. 
He, more than any other one man, was the formulator of the 
American fundamental government. In September, 1776, as 
the provinces were entering on the darkest hours of the War of 
Independence, it was he who first conceived the idea of a trained 
body of army officers. ' I wish,' he wrote to Gen. Knox, 'we 
had a military academy, and should be obliged to you for a plan 
of such an institution; and-, characteristically, giving immediate 
concrete form to the thought, he added, October 1st, a post- 
script to the still unsent letter, — ' This day I had the honor of 
making a motion for the appointment of a committee to consider 
of a plan for the establishment of a military academy.' Of this 
committee Mr. Adams was a member, and two days later it 
reported in favor of the project. An acorn was then planted; 
eighteen years were to pass before it germinated; but the oak 
tree of West Point sprouted at last. 

" He who first thus suggested the military academy, later was 
the father of the national navy. It was ' John Adams's frigates,' 
as at one time they were derisively called, which, in our second 
war of independence, that of 1812-15, by the skill of their hand- 
ling and the weight of their broadsides lifted the United States 
into a world power. The officers of the infant navy, who, in 
the hour of deepest gloom on the land, bore the flag to victory 
on the sea, were almost to a man the appointees of President 
John Adams. Finally, having made George Washington, of 
Virginia, commander-in-chief of the Army of the United States 
during the Revolution, it was later given to him, sitting in the 
chair of State, to select John Marshall to be, as the head of 
the Federal Judiciary, the expounder and developer of the 
Nation's Constitution. No point in this record is, I believe, 
open to controversy. 

" Thus, when John Adams sat here, a youth of twenty-one, in 
his great chair at school,— when he looked through his little state 



38 FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN WORCESTER. 

and discovered the great geniuses, and dreamed of the surprising 
actions and revolutions which he there saw in miniature, — he did 
but forestall the future. He was rehearsing the coming drama 
on the mimic, village stage of the Worcester school. His renowned 
generals afterwards materialized in Washington ; his great ge- 
niuses in Marshall ; his surprising actions and revolutions of the 
world in that Declaration of which he was the pillar, that Con- 
stitution of which he was the framer, that Army which he first 
formally proposed, and that Navy of which he was the founder 
and the father." 

After the addresses Mrs. Kent said : "in connection 
with these exercises we desire to call your attention to 
the old cannon now on the terrace in front of the 
building- of the American Antiquarian Society. It was 
formerly in the original Antiquarian Building, still stand- 
ing on Summer Street. Since 1853 it has been attached 
to the stone base of the iron fence surrounding the 
present building, forming its northwestern extremity on 
Highland Street. Mr. Edmund Mills Barton states that 
Samuel Foster Haven always spoke of it as the town 
gun. Honorable Stephen Salisbury thinks he remembers 
that his father told him it was used in the war of the 
American Revolution. Mr. Salisbury had the cannon 
unearthed during the first week of this month. The 
Council of the American Antiquarian Society will 
probably procure a carriage for the gun and place it 
.permanently upon the upper terrace of its grounds, 
approximately in its present position. Mr. Salisbury 
hoped to have this done in time for our celebration 
to-day, but it has been impossible. The local historian 



JOHN ADAMS SCHOOL MASTER. 39 

(Lincoln) refers to it several times, and both Mr. Sal- 
isbury and The Colonel Timothy Bigelow Chapter 
trust that further knowledge of its history may be ob- 
tained through the attention now called to its existence." 

Mrs. Kent then announced that the exercises in the 
church would conclude with the singing by audience 
and chorus of the Star Spangled Banner. She invited 
all to adjourn to the site of Worcester's first school house 
and join in singing America during the unveiling of the 
tablet by Mrs. Marble. 

The officers and guests, escorted by the Worcester 
Continentals as a guard of honor, and to the stirring 
music of their band, then marched with the audience to 
the granite post in front of the Court House and Anti- 
quarian Hall, to which the tablet had been affixed. 
Before Mrs. Marble spoke, the band played Keller's 
American Hymn. As the flags divided, displaying the 
tablet, Mrs. Marble said: " Proud of Worcester's glori- 
ous past and confident of her future. The Colonel Tim- 
othy Bigelow Chapter, Daughters of the American 
Revolution, place this tablet upon the site of the first 
school house in Worcester, whose school master, one 
hundred and fifty years ago, was John Adams, the sec- 
ond President of the United States." 



MAY 6 1905 



